The studio
Two partners, four associates, eight architects and assistants, and a model shop. All in one long room that used to make ship rope.
Our story
We started Arden & Vale because we wanted to design fewer buildings, and know each of them better.
Mara Arden and Tomas Vale met in 2001 on a hotel in Lisbon that took four years and two contractors to finish. For the next decade they built hotels for large practices in London and Copenhagen, and kept noticing that the best rooms were the ones somebody had argued for on site.
In 2011 they took a lease on the old rope works at Ropewalk Yard and opened a studio with three people and a bandsaw. The first commission was a cowshed in Somerset. It is still somebody's kitchen.
Today we take on eight to ten projects a year across Britain and Europe, with the occasional house further away when the site is too good to say no to.
What we hold to
Four habits we have kept since the first project, and which every new member of the studio learns in their first month.
Start with the site
Before we draw anything we spend at least two days on the land: at dawn, at dusk and in the rain if we can. The building should feel as if the site asked for it.
Use fewer, better materials
Most of our buildings use three or four materials, chosen because they age honestly. We would rather spend on one good oak floor than on six finishes nobody remembers.
Test it at full size
Door handles, stair treads and window seats are mocked up at one-to-one in the model shop, and clients sit in them before anything is ordered.
Stay after handover
Every project includes twelve months of aftercare. We come back each season, write down what is not working and fix it at our cost.
The people
Each portrait is drawn in the hatch of the material that person reaches for first.
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Mara Arden
Leads the residential work. Has poured concrete on four continents and still visits every site on a Tuesday.
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Tomas Vale
Leads hospitality. Spent twelve years designing hotels and now mostly designs the walk from the car to the front desk.
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Ines Okafor
Conservation architect. Runs our work on listed buildings and knows the planning officers by first name.
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Jonah Reyes
Ran Kestrel Ridge House on site in California for eighteen months. Draws the details everyone else avoids.
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Saskia Lind
Trained as a cabinetmaker in Malmö. Designs our kitchens, libraries and bars, and the model shop is her territory.
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Dev Malhotra
Joined straight from architecture school in 2024. Currently surveying a flour mill in Wiltshire, one beam at a time.
Come and see the model shop.
We are happy to meet at the studio before you commit to anything. Bring photographs of the site, or just a postcode.